Derm-it Trotter! Don't Swear About Skincare.
Feeling frustrated or overwhelmed with everything skin? Does the skinformation overload make you want to swear about skincare? Join Dr. Shannon C. Trotter, board certified dermatologist, as she talks with fellow dermatologists and colleagues in skincare to help separate fact from fiction and simplify the world of skin. After listening, you won’t swear about skincare anymore!
Derm-it Trotter! Don't Swear About Skincare.
Rethinking Sun Protection Part 2: Edible Sunscreen Alternatives
Could your grocery cart be just as important as your sunscreen drawer? In Part 2 of Rethinking Sun Protection, Dr. Katie Varman returns to explore how diet and supplements can boost your skin’s natural defense against UV damage.
We unpack how nutrients like carotenoids, polyphenols, and omega-3s reduce inflammation, DNA damage, and even sunburn risk—sometimes by as much as 40–50%. From tomatoes to carrots to niacinamide, what you eat can directly impact how your skin handles the sun.
Dr. Varman also dives into the balance between healthy sun exposure and personalized protection based on your skin type and lifestyle.
Tune in to learn how protecting your skin might just start in your kitchen.
Welcome to Dermot Trotter Don't Swear About Skin Care where host Dr Shannon C Trotter, a board-certified dermatologist, sits down with fellow dermatologists and skincare experts to separate fact from fiction and simplify skincare. Let's get started.
Speaker 2:Welcome to the Dermot Trotter Don't Swear About Skin Care podcast. Today I have a special guest back on the show, dr Katie Varmund. She's a board certified dermatologist and works in private practice at Shine Functional Dermatology in Northern California. Dr Varmund specializes in treating chronic skin conditions like psoriasis and eczema, with a blend of conventional and functional medicine practices. She also has a passion for photoimmunology or basically again, how does light affect the immune system? How do they intertwine? And she's also owner of Shine Nutraceuticals. Welcome back to the podcast, katie.
Speaker 3:Thank you so much for having me back.
Speaker 2:So for those of you that heard our previous podcast again, you might have been a little shocked to hear that Katie and I were talking more about the benefits and yes, you heard this the benefits of sun exposure. So I think in dermatology being a little bit of a bad reputation and sometimes well deserved we're really scaring the bejeebers out of you and telling you to stay out of the sun because of all the dangers associated with it. But Katie really highlighted some of those health benefits. So we're going to lead into this conversation. We're going to lead into this conversation. We're going to talk a little bit more about diet and maybe supplements or what we call more nutraceuticals that you can do for sun protection. But first I'm going to have Katie give a little preview again of kind of those health benefits of sun exposure. For those of you that missed the last one.
Speaker 3:Perfect. Thank you so much. Yes, last time we had a great discussion about some of the benefits of sunlight exposure and we talked a little bit more about things you know, really trying to find that balance between over and under exposure to sunlight, because overexposure, of course we are all very familiar skin cancer and aging of the skin being the detrimental effects. But an inadequate sun exposure is also detrimental to people as a whole, and so inadequate sun exposure can be associated with one an increased risk of all-cause mortality in general, meaning you just have a higher chance of dying from any reason if you have the lowest amounts of sun exposure.
Speaker 3:Very yes, but then also there's an increased risk of cardiovascular disease, autoimmune diseases like multiple sclerosis and type one diabetes, inflammatory conditions, things like eczema and IBS, cerebral bowel syndrome. There's benefits for mood metabolism, the microbiome we talked about also, so a whole host of things that are moderate and, you know, an appropriate amount of sunlight can can help for as far as a human being as a whole, and so we were talking about how do we help bridge that gap so that we can educate people how to get enough for, you know, wellness, but not so much that you're putting yourself at unnecessary risk of skin cancer and aging so much that you're putting yourself at unnecessary risk of skin cancer and aging.
Speaker 2:So that's the good news, you guys can go out and get some sun, although you'll have to go back to that podcast. Listen to some specific recommendations because, as Katie mentioned, it is balance that we're trying to achieve there, and part of the balance I think people are looking for for some protection is really kind of looking at our diet and then also supplements. I think supplements have really caught on. You know people are looking for natural alternatives to maximize health. So I wanted to talk about before even the supplements, you know, because the diet's kind of, you know, tagged into that with some of the ingredients in our diet that are very important for some protection practices. Let's talk more about the diet piece. What do you recommend from a diet perspective that might actually be some protective for a patient?
Speaker 3:There are a couple of different classes of foods that are very, very helpful. But I wanted to take a step back and talk about why each of those classes are going to be helpful. Because when you look at the timeline kind of the pathogenesis, that pathway from sunlight to skin cancer, from sunlight to photo aging of the skin, there's multiple different steps where we can intervene, whether it's a diet or nutraceutical or whatnot. There's multiple different steps along that pathway and that's really how we derive these main classes of dietary interventions to help, and so it's kind of important to know what those steps are, because otherwise it's just kind of a mess of you know, a mess of like. It's like, okay, eat healthy, I get it, but it really is much more specific than that.
Speaker 3:So, just to give like the one minute overview, when you're exposed to UV light, there's that whole cascade. So there's oxidative stress that occurs that damages DNA, both directly and indirectly. They're more directly from light. Specifically, there's inflammatory pathways that are activated and all of that inflammation is what you see on the skin is sunburn and redness, and there is immunosuppression that occurs in the skin after sunlight exposure and that immunosuppression is a really really, really important determinant of whether you're going to go on and get skin cancer or not, because we know people who are immunosuppressed in general have a really high risk of developing skin cancer compared to people who aren't immunosuppressed. So that plays a really important role as well.
Speaker 3:And so, when you're kind of looking at all these different layers, we want to treat that oxidative stress, so those little free radicals floating around causing damage to structures in DNA.
Speaker 3:We want to address inflammatory pathways, because when things are inflamed it creates what we call a pro-growth, a pro-tumor environment and activates tumor progression. We also want to make sure that we're addressing DNA damage as much as possible and preventing that immunosuppression that occurs from sunlight. And so the reason for all these dietary interventions is because we want to target all of those steps and kind of plug all the holes. So, just to kind of name the top ones, we can talk more about carotenoids really important antioxidants, just to kind of name the top ones, we can talk more about um carotenoids really important um, antioxidants and those kind of go with like it's anti-inflammatory as well, um, cause it's a lot of the polyphenols, omega-3s hugely, hugely important Um, and then um isoflav or the, the um like phytoestrogens. So people think of soy um can actually play an important role also, but the big ones are going to be the omegas, the antioxidants, the anti-inflammatory and the carotenoids.
Speaker 2:Wow. And so when you think of like some of those groups and diet wise, are there particular like, more specific, like foods, you would say, hey, grab a bunch of blueberries or you know what would you recommend just to be more practical? Somebody's like what should I really add in? Not that you might get the full value, because obviously you're looking at a variety of those things, but what things tangibly? Would you recommend somebody pick up at the grocery store to accomplish some of those dietary needs Angibly?
Speaker 3:would you recommend somebody pick up at the grocery store to accomplish some of those dietary needs? The easiest way, if you just want to take kind of the overview would be colorful foods. So color is an indication of polyphenol content, and what's neat about foods is they have a lot. They're rich in all sorts of different polyphenols, and so if you're getting the rainbow in your grocery cart, your blues and your reds and yellows and oranges, you can pretty much guarantee you're going to be getting a lot of these beautiful polyphenols and carotenoids as well. The big hitters for carotenoids that are kind of in everybody's diet are going to be carrots and tomatoes. Those are the easiest ones to get and it's not like you have to eat 100 carrots a day. We're talking like two carrots. And it's not like you have to eat a hundred carrots a day.
Speaker 2:We're talking like two carrots and and like God, I hate carrots. I gotta be honest with you.
Speaker 3:Well, it doesn't have to be carrots, but you know something, orange, right, and you can get your. I like. I think I literally turn orange, like every summer because I eat so many tomatoes. I love summer foods, but it's kind of fun when you think about the design of everything. It's such that right in the summertime when you need support is when all of these beautiful fruits and vegetables are available for your body, and so it's like the plants need it, and then you eat the plants and then you need it and so so there's plenty of ways to get color. You know whether you're talking about bell peppers, and there's lots of options for orange too, but carrots are kind of the easiest one that people can get down. And tomatoes, you know there's.
Speaker 3:There's a study like the lycopene, specifically in tomatoes. There's a study that looked at 16 grams of lycopene daily, dosing for anything about 10 weeks or so, which is the equivalent to like one and a half tablespoons of tomato paste. So it's not like an insane amount. Um resulted in a 40% reduction in what we call the minimal erythema dose. So how much UV light it takes to burn your skin is really dramatically reduced by like really not a whole lot of tomato paste, Um, and and so these kinds of levels that we see in studies that visibly, very clearly increase your skin's tolerance to sunlight, specifically ultraviolet light, are not exorbitant amounts. Like it's not. You're not having to take supplements and blends and things like that in order to get it. If you're having, you know, a tomato and like a carrot and maybe a cup of spinach, you're getting a ton of lutein, lycopene and beta carotene enough for like your day's amount.
Speaker 3:So, as long I tell people, as long as you're eating, like, check the list. Like, did I eat something colorful today? And then, when it comes to polyphenols, we're thinking more about, like you're saying, blueberries. The berries are really rich in polyphenols. Pomegranate is a very popular one that's very, very rich in several different amazing polyphenols. So doing a fruit and a vegetable that are colorful, I mean that's really a great goal for the day. And then you've got to eat your omega threes for the day, which most people are aware of. You know fatty fish, the salmon and whatnot, but you do flax and walnuts. And you just Google, search high omega foods, Um, and you just you just look at the list. You're like, did I eat one of those things today? Done. If you didn't, then there's supplements, and if you're high risk, then there's supplements. But in general, did you eat something colorful? Did you eat an omega-3? That's kind of the easy answer for a daily goal.
Speaker 2:No, I love that Cause. I mean I'm not a big fan of fad diets and tell people to do this extreme or that extreme. And I do think it gets overwhelming for patients because, like gosh, I gotta remember to eat this or how much, or you know I don't have time, or you know I don't care for that particular vegetable or fruit. But I think that makes it more realistic. And you know and I tend to fall back on to when people are asking for you know particular, you know diet are asking for you know particular, you know diet.
Speaker 2:Again, I'm not a fan of a diet but I usually tell you you know eating Mediterranean diet or lifestyle, really, you know, does hit some of these major food groups and things that we do need, I think, for overall general health. But it's amazing, from the sun protection piece, like that, some of the things are included in that diet. You know the omega threes, the fish diets, you know that high in those Mediterranean diets that are high in fish. And you know vegetables and fruits. I mean it's amazing how you kind of can capture both.
Speaker 2:So I was totally one in doubt. I think you're safe to go that route, but really, again, it's about balance to achieve that. So you know, beyond kind of the the food aspect of it, you know, if they jump away and say, you know, I'm just not going to do it, I don't have time, I, you know I buy vegetables, they're bad in a day so I don't even buy them. What if they're looking to do this more from the nutraceutical side, or maybe what most people might think of as more like supplements? And you know, and if you feel like there's a distinction there between true nutraceuticals and supplements, feel free to kind of comment on that too, because I think people use it often interchangeably, and what types of things should people look for in those categories as well?
Speaker 3:and and that's how I like the word supplement, you know, I think, is correct, right, it's really to supplement your, your diet, and so that's how I kind of describe it to people, right, I'm like, look at what you ate that day and you know, for a low-risk person, right, we're talking about somebody who hasn't had a ton of sunburns, they're're not immunosuppressed, they don't have, you know, very, very fair skin that feckles easily, and they live in California. Um, you know, for somebody who's not low risk, the idea is like, try to eat it, because that's good for you anyways right.
Speaker 3:Because these fall. It's not just good for your skin, it's good for your vascular system and your entire body, but, um, but if it's really something that's hard for them, like, do your best to eat those foods, but if not, that's when you put a supplement in and you can do it from day to day. You know how did you eat that week? Do you need to add a little extra supplement? Um, and, and that's an okay way to do it too, for low risk people. And so the goal with omegas, um, I'm a huge fan of omegas. I usually use two grams of omega-3 fatty acids a day. It's not the easiest to get. You end up taking some pretty hearty pills, but the omega-3 fatty acids are undoubtedly photoprotective. There is zero doubt. The literature is robust. Yes, a lot of it is animal models, because there's just not, uh, you know, as robust information in humans, but there's, you know, when we're talking about minimal erythema dose, it's a really, really nice way and that's an easy way to test and see. Is a supplement photo protective? Um, and there's studies using three grams um, uh, omega-3s daily, which will, um, will increase that minimal erythema dose by 50%. So even just an omega by itself has kind of have a profound impact, and that's because they are so, so anti-inflammatory. Now, when your cells are made up with omega-3s as opposed to omega-6s, and then you put in some beautiful carotenoids in there too, because if you look at the structure of a carotenoid, it's this long, lovely structure and it wedges itself right in that cell membrane when those cells are stressed, whether it's whatever kind of stressor, whether you're talking about pollution, which we know contributes to skin cancer, whether you're talking about sunlight or whatnot, when those cells are under stress, they create much less inflammation than a cell that's made up of omega threes and devoid of of like carotenoids and other antioxidants and things like that. And so just that anti-inflammatory aspect of it um is protected from um, the development of skin cancer and skin aging, um.
Speaker 3:And so I love the omegas and that's an easy thing to supplement. They're everywhere. You obviously want a very reputable brand, so you're not getting nasty rancid oil but omega-3s, right? If you didn't eat three servings of fish, if you're not getting flax or walnut and all these other kind of precursors for omega-3s, if you're not going to get in your diet supplement easy. Same with carotenoids If you hate carrots and you hate things that are red and orange, you can take a beautiful mixed carotenoid supplement, and the nice thing about carotenoids is you don't really have to worry about vitamin A as far as, like um, overdoing it, because you can very much overdo it with vitamin A, but carotenoids don't really have an upper limit.
Speaker 3:There is some safety concern with really high doses of beta carotene in patients who smoke, but these are very high levels and so in general you really have a hard time overdoing it with carotenoids. And so a nice mixed carotenoid supplement with lutein, lycopene and I love astaxanthin is one that's showing up in the literature a ton. But you can get nice blends and you can just supplement it if you need to. And then same thing goes for antioxidants, and we'll touch about niacinamide in a minute too. But from a dietary supplement you know the carotenoids, the omegas and the antioxidants you know you can do shots of. I mean there's beautiful blends like powders for polyphenols and stuff you can get now. There's a lot of stuff out there, mm.
Speaker 2:So you mentioned niacinamide or nicotinamide that we definitely want to touch on and some of the other things that I know that have been out there in the literature maybe people have heard of, like pine bark, you know, green tea. I mean, how many people have a cup of green tea every day or love green tea shampoo or some other health benefit they use it for? But what are some of the other nutraceuticals that you would want to highlight that you think people need to have on their radar that might be some protective as well.
Speaker 3:Yes.
Speaker 3:So for people who are moderate or high risk, or you're just outside in the sun all the time because you're an athlete and you need to compliment your sunscreen or whatnot, there are things that you wouldn't naturally find maybe in your diet. Like polypodium leucotomus is a fern. It's probably not finding its way into your diet, and higher doses of niacinamide or nicotinamide are also not finding their way into your diet, but are very, very photoprotective. And so if you consider yourself, if you're high risk just because of tons of exposure, or if you're high risk because immunosuppression or other skin cancers and whatnot, that's when those kinds of supplements can be. Um can be very helpful. A lot of dermatologists are aware of niacinamide, based on on-track trials from a few years ago, um, which demonstrated uh, you know, a modest but statistically significant decrease in skin cancer and precancers in high risk people over the course of a year. Um and niacinamide is one of my favorite tools because, um, because of the mechanism of how it works, it is unique from all the other things that we talked about. So, omega-3s being anti-inflammatory, carotenoids absorbing light, especially blue light, right, something sunscreen doesn't do very well Luton actually, like it's, specifically absorbs blue light, so it works really well for your eyes and your skin. But the carotenoids absorb stuff and then you have your antioxidants. But niacinamide is very unique in its mechanism. So when your skin is exposed to sunlight it has somewhat of an energy crisis, meaning the mitochondria can kind of go a little bit into shock momentarily and that lapse in energy that's being produced prevents DNA from being repaired very well and that downstream leads to immunosuppression in the skin. And what niacinamide does as a cofactor for energy production is it prevents that crisis from happening and promoting DNA repair and preventing immunosuppression. So that little cascade of events.
Speaker 3:It's very, very clear both topically and orally in humans and in animals, that you do not get that degree of immunosuppression in the skin when you have niacinamide on board, or nicotinamide is the other name for it. You'll also see studies with from like the biohackers, you know longevity people with like NR andN um and they're also down the road and maybe even more effective Um. But right now the studies in dermatology anyways are with niacinamide. So that's um. You know, that's usually what I'll recommend Um, but it is higher doses when you're talking about high risk patients.
Speaker 3:So a lot of the studies do either 500 or 500 twice a day, um milligrams, and it's probably a little bit less effective for people who are immunosuppressed, because the mechanism of action is that it supports the immune system and so if they don't have an immune system to begin with, it's going to be a little bit less effective. So that's why some of the studies are mixed is because some are immunosuppressed populations and some are not. But it is a really, really, really amazing tool because it is unique and immunosuppression plays a very big role in development of skin cancer, and I've had excellent results when we do these blends with my patients.
Speaker 2:Any other and, like the last couple minutes, we have supplement wise dietary recommendations you would make for somebody who's trying to maximize their sun protection but really looking for you know, kind of that natural alternative, just simply what we eat and what we can actually get, you know, maybe at the vitamin store, the grocery store, that might be able to help us a little bit more.
Speaker 3:So well, the one thing we didn't mention. The last thing I would add to the ones that we talked about was the polypodium leucotomus, and polypodium leucotomus is a burn. It's been used and studied extensively for its photoprotective roles and it has all sorts of mechanisms of how it works. Being an anti-inflammatory antioxidant supports DNA repair, but it's really, really effective. Like the other things, like all of the things I've mentioned, we have human studies in humans that demonstrate it increases how much light it takes to burn the skin, um, but then there's other benefits, um, with you know, um, preventing DNA damage with things like green tea extract you mentioned and pine bark extract, um, and all of these others that can also support um, you know different parts of that pathway. So, um, me personally, I like to blend thing and I, instead of doing mega doses of one thing you know, we support in all these different ways, um, and it's personalized, which means some person might need omegas and somebody else might not need omegas because they eat fish you know, three or four times a week.
Speaker 3:So it's personalized, and it's also personalized to the person sitting in front of you as far as how much sun they get and how much support that they need. Because somebody who has, you know, type six, very, very, you know somebody who's very dark skinned, they, you know, need more sunlight and so you could protect with all these beautiful antioxidants and things like that, but actually encourage more sunlight, versus somebody who's very fair skinned, you're going to, you know, be like okay, you need more sunscreen, we need to protect and we're going to pull up, we're going to pull out all the tools. So it's very much a personalized approach that I like to take.
Speaker 2:And I think that's the goal for each patient that when they come in, you know we just do an information overload. I know with all the great tips you just shared, it can be overwhelming, I think you know circling back to their dermatologist, their family doctor, if they're talking about supplements, really devising a plan that just meets their needs. Really good point to sort of end on here so you can kind of show us we can sort of eat and supplement our way back to skin protection from the sun or sun protection. I should say so that's fantastic. But thank you again for just kind of highlighting, you know, other ways we can protect ourselves, because I think we all get pigeonholed with just sunscreen and some protective clothing and common sense measures about when we do things, but we forget about some of the basics, which is our diet and then ways we can maximize supplements. So thank you for coming on and highlighting those on the podcast today For our listeners. Katie, if they want to find you, where can they find you out there on the web?
Speaker 3:Yes, and thank you so much for having me. I'm not very active on social media. On Instagram, our clinic here is shine underscore dermatology, and our website is shine functional med medcom, where we do try to stay active, so those would be the best places at this time.
Speaker 2:Well, thanks again for coming on the podcast and stay tuned for the next episode of Dermot Trotter. Don't swear about skincare.
Speaker 1:Thanks for listening to Dermot Trotter. For more about skincare, visit DermotTrottercom. Don't forget to subscribe, leave a review and share this podcast with anyone who needs a little skincare sanity. Until next time, stay skin smart.
